


the best sound

by theroyalmess



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Nicknames, Through the Years
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-18
Updated: 2020-01-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:08:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22299079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theroyalmess/pseuds/theroyalmess
Summary: I don’t belong to anyone,but every time you say my name,why does it feel like I’ve always been yours?
Relationships: Scott Moir & Tessa Virtue, Scott Moir/Tessa Virtue
Comments: 49
Kudos: 143





	the best sound

**Author's Note:**

> Hello!! First: thank you so much to everyone who sent sweet words about _like a river flows_. That was the first bit of writing I ever shared publicly, and your kindness gave me courage—it means the world that anyone even took the time to read ♥
> 
> This fic has been in limbo for over a year... I dusted it off recently and finally got it in shape with help from some truly wonderful friends: endless thanks to [resistate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/resistate/), [softswans](https://archiveofourown.org/users/softswans), [tessavirtch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tessavirtch), [Nats_North_by_North](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nats_North_by_North/), and [nonaliter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nonaliter) for being the greatest and helping make sure this made sense outside of my head. I’m beyond grateful!! You know how much I love you.
> 
> The fic itself was partially inspired by [this post & quote](https://bartowskis.tumblr.com/post/175697267214); the title is from [this interview](https://www.facebook.com/teamcanada/videos/tessa-virtue-and-scott-moir-answer-questions-from-fans/10155586641008264/).

  
  
She says it so much, his name. It’s occurred to her on more than one occasion that, in her 28 years of life, she’s undoubtedly said his name more than anyone else’s—and also probably more than most other words in her vocabulary.

She loves the way it sounds as she says it, the way it shapes her mouth, the way it tastes on her tongue. The crispness of the consonants, the softness of the vowel, the way he can tell exactly what she’s _really_ saying based solely on the particular way she drags out that single syllable.

(“Scott,” groaned as she shoves him in the shoulder after he delivers an especially terrible joke.

“Scott,” hissed when he accidentally snags some of her hair while exiting a spin.

“Scott,” gasped as his mouth latches onto her collarbone, his hips pressed to hers.

“Scott,” breathed from behind a wide stage smile as his hands guide her into a lift.

“Scott,” murmured as she combs her fingers gently through his hair, his tears damp on her neck.

“Scott,” squealed as he hauls her over his shoulder and carries her off the ice, her laughter ringing through the empty rink.)

So—it’s always been a little funny to her how he’s just _Scott_ , and that’s more than enough, yet he has no fewer than a dozen different nicknames for her.

She used to think about this a lot, when she was at the height of her obligatory adolescent egocentrism (and what she also, at the time, thought was the height of her crush on Scott. She would later prove herself to be wrong, at least two more times. Including the present moment.). She would examine every detail, every facet: _Does it dilute the meaning of him saying my name, if he has so many different ways of saying it? Is he trying to force a sense of familial camaraderie, in an attempt to label me as a sister-type figure? Is it just because we spend too much time together, and he’s getting bored of me, so it helps keep things interesting?_

It didn’t particularly help that some of his earlier nicknames for her seemed so _childish_ , especially during times when she didn’t want him to see her as a _child._

(She was a precocious teenager.)

(She overanalyzed too many Scott-related things.)

(She was probably always meant to study psychology.)

And then, there was her surgery. And the second surgery. And Marina’s harsh words, and Igor’s disapproval, and Meryl and Charlie’s side-glances, and her and Scott’s—whatever it was, whatever it wasn’t. Everything beyond the sheer will and desperation needed to make it through the Games in 2010, and then 2014, seemed to fade far, far away.

After Sochi and after her Year of Yes, as hard as everything had been, despite all of the tears she’d shed...she really did figure out who she was, and what she wanted, and what she didn’t. She really did learn how to be her own person, instead of perpetually one half of a whole. And after a decade of feeling beholden to her country, her sport, her family, her partner: she learned that she didn’t have to belong to anyone but herself.

After committing to the comeback, she also learned that she didn’t have to _need_ to share herself with someone, in order to _want_ to. And there was only one someone.

On the day of the official Canadian Olympic team announcement, about a month before PyeongChang, she and Scott and Patrick are pulled aside to do an interview for Team Canada‘s social media. The banter is easy and probably too casual and loaded with inside jokes, as it always is between these three close friends who have known each other for far too long and seen far too much.

After they make it through introductions (“P-Chiddy, Tessa Virtue, and Scott Moir!” to which Scott replies, “I don’t have a cool nickname! S-Middy, maybe?”), the interviewer turns to her and asks, “Tessa, do you have any cool nicknames?”

“T-Viddy?” Scott teases.

“I have lots of nicknames,” Tessa laughs, locking eyes with him for a second. He’s beaming at her, his grin at his own joke still lighting up his face in that way she’s found unreasonably endearing for two decades.

“T, Tess, Tutu, T-Bone,” she muses, tearing her gaze away. He nods, intently, as if this is the most important topic they’ve ever discussed.

“T-Bone?!” the interviewer laughs, and Scott interjects, with mock-seriousness, “You’re not there yet.”

They continue on, and it’s just a passing joke, but—it pokes at something deep in the recesses of her brain that shakes loose memories she thought she had long forgotten.

-

With all of the interview questions and promo shoots and hand-shaking and congratulatory hugging, she doesn’t get a chance to think about it again until later, when they’re winding down for the night.

He’s sitting at the foot of the bed in her hotel room, pulling off his characteristically hyper-patriotic socks: red and white color-blocked, adorned with maple leafs and _CANADA_ in bold capital letters, naturally. She’s in front of the bathroom mirror, humming to herself and removing the last of her makeup with micellar water and a cotton pad, when the thought from earlier comes back to her.

“Scott?”

“Yeah?” is the absent-sounding reply she gets. She leans back to peer around the door frame and sees him now sprawled on his back on top of the bed with the duvet shoved to one side, wearing only low-slung Skate Canada sweatpants, squinting up at his phone as he taps out a text.

She blinks, distracted for a moment by the display in front of her. The dim glow of the bedside lamp brushes his skin like burnished gold and brings out the dips and shadows of hard-earned muscles. She’s riveted enough that she doesn’t notice when he lowers his phone and catches her staring.

“T? Did you want to say something?” Scott grins at her.

She shakes her head sheepishly and looks up to meet his eyes. The twinkle in them sends a sudden rush of deep affection through her, so she tosses her cotton pad in the trash and scurries over to the bed, throwing herself on top of him and burying her face in his neck.

“Oof,” he grunts, dramatic as always, but his hands, strong and firm, immediately circle her waist and hold her tightly against him.

She giggles and squirms in his grip, stretching up to kiss his cheek with a loud smack before propping her chin up on his shoulder.

“Okay, I did have a question,” she smiles.

“Hey, I asked, but you were a little preoccupied,” he teases, kissing the tip of her nose. She scrunches up her face in feigned protest, but really, she loves it when he does that.

“It’s not my fault,” she murmurs, trailing her fingertips along the sharp angle of his jaw, then down his chest, tracing along his obliques, his abs— 

Scott grabs her wrist. “Tess,” he huffs. “If you want an answer to your question, you’d better ask it right now.”

“Alright, alright,” she concedes, tugging her wrist free from his grasp so she can slide her fingers into the spaces between his. “Remember earlier, when we were talking about nicknames?”

“Yeah?” he replies, a tiny furrow of confusion between his brows. 

“Most of mine are ones that you came up with,” she says, squeezing his hand lightly. “I’ve always wondered why you’ve given me so many nicknames, but that moment earlier made me realize I’ve never asked you about it.”

Scott’s face is contemplative as he mulls it over. “Huh. Yeah, I guess I don’t go that overboard for anyone else.”

“I used to think about this a lot,” Tessa admits, pulling a face.

“Really?” His eyebrows shoot up in mild surprise. “About all my different names for you? Why?”

“I don’t know,” she shrugs, aiming for nonchalance and missing by a mile. She shifts a little so she can curl more tightly against him and press her cold nose to the dip of his throat. Yes, this is _Scott_ , but even he probably doesn’t need to be subjected to all the random and wild things that used to run through her head on a regular basis.

“Tess,” he chides, gently. He nudges her with his chin until she tilts her head up. “C’mon.”

She lifts her gaze, and the look on his face makes her heart stutter in her chest. She should really know better by now, should know that there isn’t much she can get by him.

“In the beginning, I liked it, because it made me feel like we were _best_ friends,” she confesses, speaking slowly as the words come to her. “The kind that came up with special nicknames for each other, you know? But when we got a little older, I guess sometimes it felt like you were making sure I knew...where I stood in your life.”

Scott opens his mouth to say something, but she stops him. “Wait, let me finish first.”

He acquiesces, nods.

“It felt like...” She presses her lips together. “This just sounds kind of crazy, now.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Try me.”

“I used to think maybe…it was that you were bored, or that it all meant less, somehow. Like you were trying to brush off our relationship or—or put it in this box of just skating partners and nothing else,” Tessa sighs, frustrated that she can’t articulate it better. “I don’t know how to explain it.”

Scott had been trailing his fingertips soothingly up and down her spine, but he stops and presses his hand, splayed out, to her lower back. He tilts his head and gives her an appraising look, and the corner of his mouth lifts in a small, slightly-wistful smile.

“I’ll admit I haven’t considered it a ton before now, but that’s just…I feel a little bad that you felt that way. Because I think, to me, it was probably the opposite.”

“The opposite?”

“Yeah. It made me feel...closer to you. More important in your life? I was worried you’d think I was trying too hard, but I couldn’t help myself. I always just wanted so badly for you to notice me.”

She leans back and stares at him in disbelief. “ _Notice_ you? Scott. You’ve always been pretty difficult to ignore.”

“I know,” he rolls his eyes, “but not like _that_. You know, like, maybe Josh or Thomas or Grayson from the rink could ask you out on dates and I couldn’t—but I got to skate with you and dance with you, and I could get away with calling you Virtch, or Tutu, or T-Bone, and they couldn’t.”

She’s a little stunned. She’d never thought of it like that. Even after all of their years together, it still manages to astound her whenever the realization comes about that they remember so much of their shared time so differently.

Exhibit A: “Who the hell was _Grayson_?”

“He had curly hair and always wore polo shirts? He was _obsessed_ with you, he talked about you all the damn time,” Scott says—trying, and failing, to hide this apparently decade-long disgruntlement.

Her expression is equal parts bewilderment and bemusement; her nails scratch affectionately, reassuringly, at the nape of his neck. “That name doesn’t even ring a bell with me. I can’t believe you remember all of that.”

“Of course I remember.” He gives her a funny look. “Anyways,” he continues, “I didn’t always know it, or do it on purpose.” He starts to twirl the ends of her hair between his fingertips. “But now I think maybe it was one of my ways of showing how special you were to me and...and how special I wanted to be to you.”

She studies him as he talks, her gaze tracing the familiar lines and angles of his face, smoothed and relaxed by the nostalgia and emotion behind his words.

“I love you,” she says, simply, and watches his eyes get impossibly softer.

He cradles the back of her head, her hair tangled around his fingers, and draws her into him, pressing his lips to her forehead. She closes her eyes at his touch, a contented sigh escaping her.

Tessa knows better than anyone that their relationship, in every form it’s taken, has never been all sunshine and sparkles. They’ve had more than their fair share of darkness: some of it painfully, publicly documented; most of it carefully barricaded behind closed doors and forced smiles. But like light from the rising sun spilling into a dark room, the bright spots—the warm and soft and sweet moments—sweep through her mind and scatter across her memory.

  
* * *  


**_  
April 1999  
  
_ **

It’s a Tuesday afternoon, and she’s sitting on a bench pulling at her laces, trying to tie her skates as tightly as she can with her small hands when her fingers are already starting to feel stiff from the chill inside the arena.

“Tutu! Tutu!”

She snaps her head up and sees Scott galloping down the hallway towards her. For a kid only barely taller than she is, his presence is always so _big_. He’s like a tornado, loud and impossible to miss, plowing in and out of rooms at alarming speed.

“What’s up?” she asks, cautiously. She’s hoping he doesn’t want her to help him with another one of his crazy ideas, like last week when he wanted to catch a frog to hide inside of Jacob Mooney’s skate bag. She doesn’t really like frogs, so she said _no, sorry_ , but she also doesn’t really like saying no to Scott because he’s always so _excited_.

He skids to a stop in front of her, but somehow doesn’t stop moving; now he’s bouncing up and down on his toes.

“Aunt Carol can’t make it to practice, and they couldn’t find someone else to take us, so my mom said we can just go get ice cream!”

Tessa frowns. She always wants to follow the rules, and their parents’ rule is practice first, _then_ ice cream. Is ice cream allowed if there’s no practice?

“Are you sure it’s okay?” she says, chewing on her bottom lip a little. “I didn’t bring any money.”

“Tutu,” Scott whines. “I promise, that’s what she said! Cross my heart.” He draws a big X across his chest with one finger and puts on his best serious face. “And don’t worry, I have a couple bucks from helping mom clean the storage closets, I’ll get your ice cream. I’ll even help you take your skates back off!” He throws himself onto the ground at her feet and starts tackling her laces.

She giggles, covering her mouth with one hand and reaching for her mittens with the other. She watches him loosen the knots much faster than she would have been able to, before nudging his knee with her toe.

“Hey, Scott?”

“Uh huh?” he replies, tongue caught between his teeth as he concentrates.

“Why do you still call me Tutu when I don’t do ballet as much anymore?”

He pauses and looks up at her. “Because you’re the only real ballerina I know. I guess Angela does ballet too, but I think you’re probably better. You’re extra...extra...” His eyebrows knit together as he tries to find the word he’s thinking of. “Extraordinary! You’re extraordinary, Tutu,” he says, so earnestly, eyes bright.

Tessa blushes and ducks her head. _Oh._

“Is that cool? Can we go get ice cream now?” he asks, as he finishes her right skate and scrambles back up to his feet. He reaches over and tugs on her braid.

“Yeah,” she smiles, swatting his hand away. “That’s cool.”

  
*  


**_  
August 2005  
  
_ **

It’s not until after they’ve driven over the Ambassador Bridge, passed through U.S. Customs, merged onto I-96, and are 15 minutes away from Canton, when Scott brings himself to say what she feels like he’s been wanting to say since he picked her up in London.

As their training at Arctic Edge intensifies, Tessa’s been finding it harder and harder to go back each time after they visit home. She isn’t sure if he feels the same way—she thinks he probably doesn’t, given the amount of hockey games and house parties and “hot dates” that occupy his time when they’re not skating. But she knows he heard her sniffle, even though she tried to hide it with a cough. She knows he saw the tears she wiped from her cheeks, even though she pretended to be looking out the window so she could turn her face away.

He hadn’t called her out, but he had been acting even goofier than usual, trying to make her laugh by telling increasingly wild stories about his brothers and blasting songs he knows she likes but singing all the wrong words.

He seemed to run out of steam about an hour ago, though—probably since she wasn’t giving much back in way of response—and they’d been sitting in relative silence since then.

Now, Scott shoots her a sideways glance and grips the steering wheel a little tighter, as if to steel himself for something.

“Hey,” he says, finally.

“Hmm,” is all she can summon. She closes her eyes and tips her head back against the headrest, letting the orange rays of the late summer sun warm her face. Maybe if she pretends she’s fallen asleep, he’ll drop it.

He’s quiet for a long moment. When he tries again, his voice is gentler than she’s ever heard it.

“Hey, kiddo.”

Tessa’s surprised enough by his tone, and the nickname she hasn’t heard from him in a while, that she lifts her head and turns to blink at him. They’ve stopped at a red light, and he’s looking back at her with that gentleness written all over his face.

He reaches over and takes her hand, and she looks down at their fingers as they lock together.

“It’s okay to be sad,” he says. “And scared. I am, too.”

She glances back at his face, and he’s still looking at her. She has to swallow down the lump that rises in her throat. 

“But we’re lucky, because we’re in it together.” He raises their intertwined hands, to punctuate his last word. “So let’s do it together, yeah? Tell me if you’re sad, or scared. And we’ll watch a movie or play a board game or eat chocolate or something.”

For whatever reason, the first words she can think to say are: “Probably not chocolate. Marina wouldn’t like that.”

“Fuck Marina,” Scott says, cheerfully.

A horn honks loudly, and she jumps, as if she’s scared Marina can somehow hear them. Then, she realizes that they’re still sitting at the stoplight, but the light’s now green and there are three other cars lined up behind them.

He pulls through the intersection and squeezes her fingers once before letting go. She returns her hand to her lap, curling it around the other.

“Thanks, Scott,” she says, quietly, with a small smile.

“Anytime, kiddo.”

  
*  


**_  
October 2010  
  
_ **

It’s dark in the small room when she wakes up. The only light she can make out through her bleary vision, as she tries to blink the grittiness from her eyes, is a yellow glow from the crack under the door. It’s quiet, too, only soft snoring and the hum of the air conditioning filling the air. But even in the stillness, the blanket of anxiety that had wrapped around her when she woke up the first time after the surgery makes itself known again. She can feel its weight pressing down on her chest, and—

Snoring? Isn’t she in a single-patient room? Is she actually awake, or is she still knocked out from the painkillers and having an impressively vivid dream? She tries to move her hand to pinch herself, and instead comes into contact with a headful of thick hair.

It’s Scott, of course it is. He’d come over earlier and kept her company during and after her pitiful hospital dinner, but she assumed he would have gone home for the night after she unceremoniously fell asleep while he was mid-sentence. Instead, it looks like he dozed off, slumped forward awkwardly in the hard plastic chair with his elbows on his knees and his cheek pressed to her sheets.

She can’t reach far enough to touch his face or his shoulder, so she gently cards her fingers through his hair.

“Hey,” she whispers.

When his snores continue, uninterrupted, Tessa taps a fingertip lightly against his skull.

“Scott.”

He jerks awake with a full-body twitch and a noise of confusion. “What? What’s wrong?”

“What are you still doing here?” she asks him. She’s shaking her head, but her smile is colored with fondness.

“I wasn’t going to leave without making you listen to the rest of…whatever super important thing I was talking about earlier,” he jokes. He pushes himself upright, grimacing when his back cracks spectacularly in protest.

She tugs on his hand, and he leans over to help her sit up, sliding an extra pillow behind her lower back.

“You need anything? Water? Meds? Another blanket?” His voice is gravelly, still thick with sleep.

Tessa shakes her head and just scoots over a little bit, careful not to jostle her legs, before patting the space she’s cleared. He obliges, his movements mindfully slow as he edges onto the bed next to her. Without even thinking about it, her head finds his shoulder.

“You don’t have to stay,” she mumbles. “Go home and sleep in a real bed.”

Scott hums, the sound a low rumble in his chest as he wraps an arm around her to hold her against him.

“And miss giving you another chance to fall asleep on me? Both figuratively and literally? No way, T-Bone.”

She hides a smile in the collar of his shirt. “You’re going with T-Bone? Really?”

She feels warm now, and languid. Lighter. It vaguely occurs to her that the stifling anxiety she woke with, while not gone, seems miles away.

“You don’t like T-Bone?! How about T-Dog?”

“I’m vetoing all animal-inspired nicknames.”

She thinks she feels him kiss her hair as her eyes drift closed.

“Alright, T-Bird.”

  
*  


**_  
February 2014  
  
_ **

It’s still crazy to her how easy it is to forget where she is when they’re hand-in-hand, just stroking around the ice. It could be Ilderton Arena, Pacific Coliseum, a run-down hockey rink on the outskirts of whatever town they’re in: the warmth of Scott’s palm and the sounds of their blades on the ice are always her reliable constants. In this moment, she’s not even thinking about losing the gold or breaking up with Marina or leaving Canton for good—all of which are things that have just happened or are likely to happen soon.

Tessa blinks a couple of times, and the sights and sounds around her rush back in. They’re in the Iceberg Skating Palace, warming up and waiting for gala practice to begin. As they circle around the outside edge of the rink, the other skaters start to gather in the center in a jumble of brightly-colored team jackets, their loud voices and raucous laughter bouncing up to the rafters and through the arena. She lifts her head to look at Scott and finds him watching her carefully, entirely focused on her. Once she meets his gaze, his face gently creases into a soft smile, the full-bore warmth of it washing over her with the soothing calm of a hot bath at the end of a long day.

“You zoning out on me, T?”

She tucks her chin into her scarf and shakes her head.

“Just thinking,” she says, voice low enough that he dips his head to catch her words.

“About?” he prompts.

“I feel like…I feel like everything’s about to change. But right now, it just feels the same as it always has. It’s just you and me.”

“It’s kinda weird, eh? Before we got on the plane to come here, if I let myself think about _after_ , it seemed so scary and so unknown. Like we were about to jump off a cliff with no idea what was down there,” he says.

“And it was—it was _so_ scary, but we made it through. _We_ did this. We did it together, on our own, when people who were supposed to be there for us weren’t,” Tessa says, fervently. “I’m really proud of us, Scott.”

She looks up at him, her smile growing wider when he grins back at her.

“We were awesome. Some of our best skates ever,” he muses, eyes crinkling at the corners.

“Really? You think? I’m not too sure, apparently our Finnstep wasn’t very good.” She presses her lips together and tries to put on a believable straight face. 

That gets a loud laugh out of him, the kind where he throws his head back so suddenly he almost loses balance. She snorts inelegantly and keeps her grip on his hand, anchoring him to the ice. When he’s calmed back down, he bumps his shoulder against hers.

“But really,” he says. “You alright?”

“You know what,” she starts. The corner of her mouth quirks up as her gaze flicks over to Meryl and Charlie, across the ice. Charlie’s goofing around with Max; Meryl, a safe distance away from their horseplay, is focusing intently on adjusting the zipper on her coat. Tessa pulls her free hand from the warmth of her pocket to wrap her fingers around Scott’s forearm. “I think everything might end up okay.”

“Yeah?” His expression is reflective, meditative. “Me too, T.”

It wasn’t okay, for a while after. Not yet.

But at that precise moment, their skates gliding in parallel paths, her hand wrapped in his, her name short and sweet on his tongue—it was.

  
*  


**_  
May 2017  
  
_ **

It’s her twenty-eighth birthday, and Scott is determined to find a way to say happy birthday to her that rhymes with some variation of her name, even if he has to learn it in a different language.

They’re alone together in the change room, and she’s all ready to go, just waiting for him to get his skates on for their late afternoon practice. He’s managed to stick one foot into his left boot, but hasn’t gotten any further than that because he’s still “doing important research, babe.”

“Scott,” she laughs, “it’s almost 4:30. If you don’t hurry up, we’re not going to have time to run through anything before dinner.”

“Hold on, hold on,” he mutters, still swiping at his phone. “Aha!”

He whoops and pumps a fist in triumph, and Tessa can’t help but shake her head at the look on his face. He’s like an overexcited, overgrown puppy, with his long, shaggy hair and lopsided grin.

“Alright, let’s hear it.”

Scott opens his mouth to begin, but she stops him. “Oh, wait! Wait, hold on, I want to record this.”

“Come on! Now I need to read it again, I already forgot how it goes,” he frowns, as she holds her phone up to get him in frame. He sticks his tongue out at her playfully before looking back down at his screen and she giggles, tapping the red record button.

He glances up, eyebrows raised. “Is it on?”

“Yeah,” she says, laughing again. She’s been like this all day, since she woke up to chocolate chip pancakes and fresh coffee and soft kisses, and she can’t seem to stop; her cheeks are almost sore from smiling so much. She gestures at him with her other hand to _go ahead_.

“Geburtstag to the Virtch Dog!” he finally announces, looking so proud of himself. 

“Thank you,” she coos sweetly and blows him a kiss from behind the camera. 

She taps the button to stop recording just as he says, “It’s probably not completely correct, but I’m tweeting it.”

Tessa lifts an eyebrow. “Virtch Dog? That’s a new one.”

“Well, I came up with Virtch, so I get to modify it. Only the best for my girl, on her birthday and every day.” He’s grinning with such self-satisfaction, she has to roll her eyes—but all the same, she can’t resist crossing the room, swinging her leg over his thighs and settling onto his lap.

Like he knows exactly what she wants, which he does, he immediately pulls off his baseball cap and drops it onto her head so she’s free to slide her fingers into his thick hair, which she does.

They don’t end up having enough time to skate, _and_ they’re late for dinner.

(It takes every ounce of the control she’s gleaned from a 20-year career spent in front of cameras to not blush at the discerning look Marie-France levels their way, when they rush into the restaurant nearly 10 minutes behind schedule.

Later, when Marie and Patrice are engrossed in selecting their next choice from the wine list— _“Je t’en prie, it’s our treat! You cannot be allowed to pay for your own wine on your own birthday, Tessa.”_ —Scott leans into her, reaching over to squeeze her knee under the table.

“Told you it would be alright, eh, Virtch Dog? We’re not in the _doghouse_ for being late,” he whispers, tossing her an exaggerated wink for full effect.

She lets out a beleaguered sigh. “You really don’t remember when I said I wanted to veto animal-related nicknames?”

He stares at her. “I _remember_ , but you can’t still be serious. That was forever ago.”

“Oh, I’m still serious. Unless you’d rather be in the _doghouse_ all by yourself,” she says, tracing a fingertip along the back of his hand that’s still on her knee. “And I don’t think that’s where you want to be,” she flutters her lashes, “especially not tonight. I’m quite looking forward to my birthday present.”

He gulps.

“Yes, ma’am. Veto sustained.”)

  
*  


**_  
December 2017  
  
_ **

It’s just after 9 PM, there’s a winter storm blanketing Montreal in a thick layer of fresh snow, and Tessa’s curled up on her couch, snacking on baby carrots and scrolling through Instagram on her phone, when her laptop pings with an email notification from where it’s sitting on the coffee table.

She stretches forward and just manages to snag it with her fingertips without disturbing the perfect nest of blankets and pillows she’s settled into. She maximizes the window that was already open to her inbox and finds a message from their publicist, sent to both her and Scott’s emails. She’s assuming Scott hasn’t seen it yet, given that he’s currently enduring the weather to buy toilet paper—because, with PyeongChang rapidly approaching, both of their training-addled brains had neglected to realize they needed to restock until the very last roll was nearly gone. 

The single line of text in the email reads: _Here’s a sneak peek at those Picture Perfect videos you guys did for CBC! Very sweet._

Curious, Tessa clicks the link to Scott’s video as she crunches down on another carrot. She hasn’t seen his clip yet, and they’d done so many interviews and shoots back-to-back that day that she’d forgotten to ask him what picture they’d had him describe.

She smiles to herself when, in the video, he flips over the frame and it’s of him from Vancouver, in the Kiss & Cry, leaping to his feet and yelling at the top of his lungs after their scores went up. The look on his face when he sees the photo makes her heart clench. It had been such an insane moment, still indescribable even all these years later, and he seems to feel the same way based on how he struggles a bit to find words.

But then, with confidence and clarity, he’s saying: “So much of it is about what we’ve built together, and for me, it’s been like that in my life...where sometimes I might not have the power to do it for myself, but I will always do it for Tess.”

Tessa feels her chest tighten with emotion, and she presses her fingertips to her lips when a small noise breaks free from her throat. She goes back a few seconds in the video and hits play again.

She plays it a couple more times, soaking in his words, his inflection, his voice saying her name. “Tess” is probably the most widely-used nickname by the people in her life, but when he says it, with his ever-present sincerity and emotion...it might be her favorite sound in the world.

Abruptly, there’s the sound of a key in the lock, and the front door swings open. 

“They didn’t have the brand we usually get, so I had to go with this one, but I think it seems decent? If it’s terrible, we can just—”

At the sound of the same voice she was just listening to through the computer speakers, Tessa whips her head around.

Scott stumbles a bit in the process of toeing off his wet boots, as he takes in her wide eyes while she tries to blink away tears she hadn’t even realized were forming.

She stares back at him, standing there holding two packs of toilet paper precariously with one arm, the other braced against the wall for balance so he can kick off his shoes. His hair is staticky and sticking up in every direction from the knit toque he just yanked off of his head. He looks ridiculous and like everything she loves most in the world.

For a second, they just look at each other, and then he dumps his purchases on the counter and in a few long strides is leaning over the back of the couch to take her face in his still-gloved hands.

“Hey, hey, hey. Are you okay? What’s wrong? What are you—” 

He notices the video open on her computer, which she’s clutching tightly in her lap with both hands.

Scott shifts his gaze back to her, and she’s still staring at him. He looks at her with concern, eyebrows drawing together, like he still isn’t sure what she’s reacting to.

“Is it the video? What did I say, I can’t remember, was it terrible? Did I slip up and tell the world I’m desperately in love with you?” He gives her a wry grin as his thumb rubs over her cheekbone, the black fleece of his glove soft against her skin.

A laugh bubbles out of her, and she smiles at him, tremulous but with all the adoration she can pour into it. She shakes her head and sets the laptop aside so she can grasp his hands, where they’re still cradling her face.

“You may as well have.”

She repeats his words back to him: _“Sometimes I might not have the power to do it for myself, but I will always do it for Tess.”_

A look of realization passes over his face. “Oh, yeah,” he says, a bit shyly. Her favorite smile spreads across his face, the one that makes her whole body feel like it’s being infused with warmth. “I meant it. That’s always been true.”

She can’t hold it in anymore and surges up to kiss him, hard. Her hands slide down the backs of his to curl tightly around his forearms as she slants her mouth over his. When they break apart, they’re both breathing like they’ve just run sprints. His lips are glossy and red from her strawberry chapstick and she thinks, dazedly, as she gathers her composure: _I did that_.

“I love you,” she whispers, pressing her forehead against his.

“Love you, Tess,” he says, his voice low and scratchy and sweet, so sweet. “So fucking much. You have to know that everything… It’s always for you.”

“Even braving a blizzard after dark to get toilet paper,” she laughs. 

“Toilet paper, Olympic medals...all equally important, eh?” Scott grins. He pulls his gloves off, tossing them over his shoulder, and his hands start drifting down towards her ribs, and she knows _exactly_ what he’s about to do.

“Scott. Scott, _no_ ,” she squeals. “Noooo!” She attempts to scramble out of reach but gets caught in her tangled pile of blankets and pillows. He dives over the back of the couch to tickle her, and when he pauses for a moment—holding himself steady over her on one arm, so he can carefully move her bowl of carrots onto the coffee table and out of danger before resuming—the last thing that crosses her mind before she’s breathless with laughter is that she never really thought it could be so easy to be so _happy_.

  
* * *  
  


“You still with me?” His fingers squeeze her hip. 

Tessa hums, pressing closer, slipping one leg between his. “I was just remembering—”

“—when the last time I called you Virtch Dog was? I’m thinking it might be time to bring it back, eh? Maybe in our next interview? I’m pretty proud of that one.”

“Sure, I like the way it sounds paired with _Scotty_.”

He squints at her. “You wouldn’t.”

She just blinks back, all big green eyes and innocuous sweetness. She knows what he’s about.

Scott sighs. “Okay, okay, you win.”

“ _Merci_ ,” she sing-songs. He lunges as if to nip at her ear, and she laughs, dodging his snapping teeth.

Without dislodging her from her position twined around him like a vine, he manages to wriggle out of his sweatpants, pull the duvet up over both of them, and reach over to flick off the bedside lamp. They fall back into a comfortable quiet. They like to joke that her favorite music isn’t actually Hall & Oates, but rather, silence (and whenever they do, Scott never fails to start singing Simon & Garfunkel)—but these really are the kinds of moments she cherishes. When it’s just her, and him, and the warmth of his skin beneath her cheek, his soft breaths ruffling her hair, his fingers interwoven with hers.

He must have started to drift off because he twitches when she suddenly speaks again, as if she’s startled him awake.

“I think why you did it, back then—with all of my nicknames?” She kisses his chin, his jaw, the corner of his mouth, working her way up until they’re nose to nose. “You were on the right track; it does make you special.” 

“How’s that?” Scott murmurs. They’re wrapped up so tightly together, she can feel the flutter of his lashes on her cheeks.

“It took me a long time to learn, but I know now.” Her fingers push the hair off of his forehead and slide into the soft strands at the back of his head. Her other hand curls around his cheek, tilting his face just right so their lips can touch. “I know I don’t belong to anyone,” she whispers, “but when you say my name, no matter how you say it…”

Tessa closes her eyes and breathes the words into the barely-there space between them. She can feel the slow curve of his mouth as he smiles against her lips.

“It feels like I’ve always been yours.”  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I would love to hear from you!! Let me know what you think, here or at [theroyaImess](https://twitter.com/theroyaImess) on twitter or [bartowskis](https://bartowskis.tumblr.com/) on tumblr :)


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